Slashdot Mirror
Building a Better Office
xjrfx asks: "I'm in charge of setting up a new office for my company. I want to make the place as worker friendly as possible, comfortable enough that long hours don't seem like banishment to a beige hell. I was hoping to get some input from Slashdot regarding past office experiences, good and bad. What amenities/factors cause you to love or hate your office? If you could create your perfect office how would it work?"
"Did you feel schizoid in open offices or claustrophobic in cube farms? Were you ever forced to be in an office when you would have been more productive on the road, or conversely have you ever had to leave the office to focus on the task at hand? What's more important; a foosball table or a fancy furniture system? Do you want the same desk space for your duration of your employment or do you want to move around depending on your projects?
Our office will be 40-45 people (15 engineers, 7 creative types, 15 biz dev/sales, and some support staff and part-timers as well), but I'm open to opinions from people from much larger or smaller offices."
Our office will be 40-45 people (15 engineers, 7 creative types, 15 biz dev/sales, and some support staff and part-timers as well), but I'm open to opinions from people from much larger or smaller offices."
Here are a list of things I've had and loved...
-Fast internet connection. Not only useful for downloading tools/patches/etc fast, but people will want to use the internet to check news, email, slashdot in the morning. A fast internet connection will help them get it out of the way quicker (right now we have a 5 floor building on on T-1 that also serves as a connection between buildings. I'm lucky if I get 5k/sec).
-Budget in money for free sodas/water/coffee. I like to go for a morning coffee run, but I'd rather have an espresso machine and some cold Coke's at the office
-Aeron chairs. Spoil my ass please. These things are more comfortable to sit in than it is laying down. I bought the one I used when I quit one of my previous jobs
-Actually, modern looking furniture in general makes the place look a lot better and makes it seems like your job is more important than it really is, making you a little happier
-Cubes offer good privacy, but you can feel cramped. The best experience I had was a big open room. People had their l-shaped desks against the wall, so you couldn't see their monitor, but you could see their face. Also, moving desks is never fun!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
First of all, I'd assert that fffice policies are just as important as office layout. If I'm told I can redecorate, then I'd almost rather do that than trading generic beige for something that some stranger decided is "artistic".
Here are ideas to consider:
No fluorescent lights. Try to provide full-spectrum sources where possible, and give people the ability to control how much light they work with. I have a big black insert in my window to keep glare off my screen and usually keep my overhead off too. Programmers and creative types are usually the most sensitive to this.
We have a couple people that are seldom in the office. We actually give them larger offices with a spare table and use them as mini-conference rooms while they're gone. And since they're seldom in, they usually have clean desks. (This assumes you have square footage to spare like that.)
If anyone in the office commutes by bicycle, a shower is a great thing to have. Appreciated by them *and* their coworkers. >:0
If you have a snack area, you'll probably have a microwave. Consider also having a toaster oven, or better yet a full size stove/oven. This makes it easier to fix whatever you're in the mood for. And I'm more likely to hang around the office if I can have what I'm in the mood for. (Microwaved bagels are right out, for instance). Ditto for an icemaker.
Have enough printers. Having to walk from one end of an office to another just to print a short doc is annoying. Make sure the printing facilities are split up and placed strategically around the office.
If you have creative types as mentioned, at least one conference room should be wall to wall with whiteboards (or smarter equivalents if you have the budget). I like to have two in my office alone.
Make sure there is good (and adjustable) air conditioning and heating. It's very hard to productive when you're too hot or cold.
At my current company we have an M&M jar on the front desk that gets emptied and replenished every couple of days. Nice for those times when you've got a munchie attack but don't have time before your next meeting to go get something. Doesn't have to be M&Ms, but just something along those lines.
In the Portland, Ore area and like card games? Check out: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/portlandgames/
One place I worked was in an industrial park, and they took over half of a building. The kitchen of the place was actually the remains of a failed industrial park-ish greasy spoon, and as a result we had a commercial gas range, two huge fridges, a deep freeze, a full complement of pots, pans, etc. It was great. Nothing like being able to just walk into the kitchen and make yourself a good non-microwaved meal to make one feel at home... Mmm. Still miss making steak for lunch...
It was wonderful.
However, now I live in Hawai'i and my lab here is kinda the opposite -- here I have an office which is completely surrounded with glass - but overlooks a beautiful landscaped garden - so it's worth it. Still have the rolling chair, no carpeting and incandescentlighting and locked door.
However, number one on my list of light tips is NEVER EVER put a light source in the field of vision behind a computer monitor (eg. don't face your desk and computer out a window). It will force your eyes to continuously adjust between light levels while trying to focus on the light produced from the monitor and that coming from behind it. Always put light sources behind the viewer. Use diffused lights (eg. not a window) when possible to reduce glare, too.
Plants are also a benefit in increasing the mood of a room. I don't have any at work (yet), but the shelves in my home office are covered in plants, and I can attest that when they're not there (I recently had a mealy bug infestation and had to quarantine them) the room is not as nice of a place to be. And I mean real, living plants, not the plastic kind. If you're worried about maintenance, get succulents like hoyas -- they'll stay happy even if you forget to water them for weeks, and they have really cool flowers.
Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers
I like being in the same room with others on the same project.
---
And Quiet.
These points really encapsulates the core issues of good workspace design, but achieving them can be harder than describing them. To restate them as I see them:
(1) Effective isolation from distractions. People doing valuable work almost universally need to be able to concentrate. For most of us, this means quiet. Intercoms, other people's phone conversations (and mobile phone ring tones), obtrusive music, noisy conference rooms, all steal productivity from your employees. (Some like having background music, some dont. Those who want it should have effective comfortable headphones so they don't disturb people who can't work as effectively with background noise).
(2) Effective workgroup communication. Basically, this means it should be trivially easy to speak face-to-face with everyone each employees needs to communicate with during completion of their typical daily tasks.
These two primary considerations can work together, but there's a tension between them as well. Workgroup communication is ideal when I can turn my head to a co-worker and ask a question, but the more people I can look around and see, the noiser my workspace will be. Workspace isolation is ideal when everyone has private soundproofed offices, but there's an increased cost to either IM'ing someone (instead of having the nuance available in face-to-face speech) or taking the time to walk over to the other person's office.
I have come to believe that workspace sharing is crucial, but the upper limit of a really effective workspace is around six people. You can possibly have eight very cooperative and respectful individuals, but workspaces tend to last longer than the teams that occupy them and I wouldn't recommend larger than six.
In my own history, I've seen lots of different office plans, from cube farms to private offices and lots of variations between. My favorite office layout had the team of seventeen (including development staff, QA staff, and the team lead in "quads". Each quad was a 20'x20' room with two walls covered with whiteboard, two others had bland office paint and some nice artwork. Four desks and a 4' round table easily fit in each quad. The five quads had staggered openings on a common hallway that led to one small conference room, one large conference room, a kitchen area, and the front door (on the other side of the common areas).
One other very nice amenity that I've never seen anywhere else was a single stall shower adjacent to the bathrooms, so doing a lunchtime jog around the hills near the office didn't leave you sweaty and stinky for the afternoon.
Too bad they were in Cincinnati when I really wanted to be in Austin...
Regards,
Ross
Remember that in many (if not most) companies, implementation, QA, admin, security etc. is just as much of a creative function as coding. Keep those people stimulated and comfortable too.
I've seen alot of good software severely marginalized when the coder was seen as the sole creator.
I agree about the computer thing. I personally hate over zealous admins that lock the hell out of everything. I mean, sure, there's a place for it. But often times it simply pisses people off because they feel as though they aren't trusted and it makes them dislike their work enviornment just a litle less.
This is a tough one. I've been a sysadmin in a couple small companies. I started at the company I'm at now (family business), and locked down the network a little bit, but users could install software, and change things a fair amount. What happened was eventually systems were becoming totally unusable as adware got installed, and all sorts of other garbage people were trying out got on there, and the system would need to be redone. Since my primary job wasn't being a sysadmin, this made me do a bunch of extra work.
I then went over to a software development company, and as we grew, I took on the role of sysadmin there as well. Initially I tried a mildly locked down environment with software delopment from Win2k server, and it was a nightmare. I took it off within a day because the programmers all hated it, and it was easier to install manually on the few support staff systems than it was to create packages.
When I came back to my current job (which is not a computer company), I decide it was time to redo the network. So now it runs on Samba, and the workstations are locked down so that users can't install software, and a few registry changes are forced at login. I also use wpkg for software deployment, which is a huge timesaver. Most of the security, however, comes from the permissions on network shares and folders.
While this is what the grandparent poster hated, I can totally understand why. The amount of time I deal with dumb problems of users screwing up their machines has dropped to almost nothing, and I only get a few people annoyed ocasionally that they have to get me to install software for them. (Well worth my reduced time). I think for the most part they understand too, because our workstations are basically never down.
Most people won't fill their machines with bullshit. And the ones that do are pretty easy to detect, and those are the ones you can lock down.
But then it's after-the-fact. You now still have to spend time reimaging and configuring the system. Then you lock it down, and the user is angry because they can't make changes like they could before and like everything else can.
Speak before you think
It seems it happens to the best of them. How sad. The job of the IT person is to free the mind of the employee -> allowing them to be productive -> so the company can make money. That is unless you are working in an Electronic Sweat Shop where the cost of the brain power is less then the cost of the computer. If the brain power is not doing the work they should be shown the door. It is that simple.
IT people have a large amount of power, and some of the correct use is making sure idiots (usally those outside the company) can't do bad thing to the company. The correct focus of the IT person should be the productivity of the employees, not your ability to make life easier on yourself.
New rant: This is someplace were Unix/Linux is wonderful. With Linux I can cheaply install more software on every machine then almost anyone would use. Very few applications are ever missing. Costomizations stay in the users own directory. If you have a problem expect me to restore yesterdays configuration. If your machine has a software problem, it's going to get wiped. In this world the User gets all the power and the admin gets a consistent easy to install system. Everyone wins.
Yes, I'm both the admin and the user. I have worn both hats often at the same time.
Meeting rooms:
1. no chairs
2. work table set to standing height for papers, etc.
3. all the walls are whiteboard.
With no chairs, meetings are exactly as long as they need to be, and no longer. Yes, I *have* worked in this kind of environment, and it works great.
A couple years ago I heard a talk from an executive from one of Australia's bank (can't remember which one). She talked about how the bank spent a few million dollars on the office design for a five floor building (I think) and how successful the design was on affecting how the workers worked.
There was a couple things she did that were of note. Apart from having the obvious aspects of having a well lit and plessant work place. The building was designed to facilitate communication between the different departments of the organisation that wouldn't usually communicate. This was done by having a coffee shop in a cetral aspect of the building (in the middle of the middle floor). There was a large stair case that was centrally located which meant that people could easily move between floors. People from different departments would meet in the coffee shop (accidentally or on purpose) who would otherwise not see each other but would depend on each other. In the informal setting of the coffee shop they would talk to each other about their work which built organisational coherence and changed the adversereal nature of the departments within the organisation. The building also had an abundance of informal meeting rooms (some without chairs or a table) and some formal meeting rooms, which meant that people could meet easily and communicate more readily.
In terms of having an office design, I think it is most important to facilitate communication. The organisation will need to work as a whole which is much greater than the sum of its parts. Ideas need to evolve by diverse groups of people talking to each other. Informal meeting rooms automatically lower bariers and tention between people which helps in having successful meetings. The office needs to resist peoples ability to build walls around themselves and fortify themselves beuracratically.
Good Luck!Yet another ironic recursive statement.
you definitely hit some major points:
1) good lighting not only is easier on the eyes, it will make your employees be able to physically relax and get their minds focused on their jobs
2) if the tools that you give your employees to do their job are continuously breaking or causing problems (whether it's desks, monitors, software) then you need to consider replacing them.
3) lots of power plugs, lots of network ports so you can temporarily add & remove machines (laptops, client machines, etc) to the network with ease.
4) you need to also consider your network and computer-policies as an extension of the 'office' because your employees will spend more time (hopefully) wandering the 'virtual office', ie the network, than actually walking around the physical office...
Gekido's Lair
But does it scale? :) Will it be 10 groups of 10 or 100 people in the same room? Good luck with the noise...
The OBR arrangement might be good for scrappy development teams where there are lots of interactions between developers. But I doubt if it would scale to larger teams, and probably would only work well in the initial stages of a longer project.
Perhaps a happy medium for larger projects would be to use OBR for the initial stages of a project, and offices after the team and project have gelled.
Everyone here's going to be pissed at me for saying so, but great code will get you nowhere if you can't sell it. Make sure the sales team has the privacy they need to close deals on the phone and have customer meetings without distractions like this.
Berto
Quite simply, hire a design professional or architect. They're the ones trained in progression of space, ergonomics, lighting, accoustics, color, materials, and environmental psychology. A good work environment is much more than Aeron Chairs and free sodas.
Not anyone can design good websites (*cough*) or write good software (*cough*), so please don't think that anyone can design 3-dimensional space.
I'm sure all you web developers cringe when you see all those "home website designer" packages at Best Buy just as we do at the design-your-own-dream-home ones. We're barraged by bad design just because someone thinks they can save a dollar or two by doing it themselves...
After all, how hard could it be?
;-)
Ok, I dont have that...But I have everything that I need. I work in a small, software house in New Zealand, and here it works well...
We have free soda,
We have a free coffee machine (Beans, not instant-mud)
We have kitchen facilities,
We have a pool table, a dart board and "ping-pong"
We have an open office, two desks together, loosely couple by project.
Everyone has the same style chair.
There is a non intrusive radio playing all day.
Directors sit in a "fish bowl" (Out of the kitchen as it were)
Everyone has a PC that is capable of doing their job.
Everyone has VMWare too
We have fast internet access (Well it is NZ, so this becomes another story!)
And Friday is beer o'clock day, company funded.
If a small company can do this....?
Good points for the most part, though I think you have a rather narrow view of "true hackers". You can thank ESR for that. Some of us enjoy teamwork, because we realize that the manipulation of other people is a wonderful game in and of itself ;)
P.S. - If you mod this up, it means I win
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Sociopaths are very rarely good coders, they just think that they are. Predominately because they don't mix with enough other people to realise that they're barely mediocre. A good coding team has people that can work together and actually get on with each other; as well as being excellent programmers. Office toys like table football can help foster this kind of environment.
I do a lot of 'duo-coding' simply because some problems get solved faster and better with four eyes then with two. Two people working a one PC can often outperform 3 people working alone, depending on what they are working on.
So a desk that is big enough to place two chairs behind it is a huge plus for me.
The point about the mouse and keyboards are very correct, and i whould like to add double points for a cordless mouse (and enough batteries).
Another important point for me is a place (preferably outside) to go to just to get away from the screen and take some distance from the work. The most difficult problems are solved away from the code, by looking at the problem from some distance.